Four Colleges Hit With Federal Sexual Assault Policy Complaints

May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Students from four universities said
they filed federal complaints alleging that their schools failed
to address campus sexual assault and harassment.

The college students filed actions with the U.S. Education
Department against Dartmouth College, Swarthmore College, the
University of Southern California and the University of
California, Berkeley, said Gloria Allred, a women’s rights
attorney, at a press conference today in New York.

Students across the U.S. are filing complaints alleging
that their colleges’ policies and procedures violate the Clery
Act -- which requires universities to report violent acts on
campuses, including sexual assault -- or Title IX of the
Education Amendments of 1972, which bars sex discrimination on
campus. Violations can result in fines or the loss of federal
student financial aid.

“We are asking the Department of Education to open an
investigation into these complaints and take appropriate actions
to force these colleges to comply with the law or risk losing
their federal funding,” said Allred, of Allred, Maroko &
Goldberg in Los Angeles, at today’s press conference.

Jim Bradshaw, an Education Department spokesman, didn’t
immediately respond to an e-mail requesting confirmation that
the complaints were filed.

Rebecca Chopp, president of Swarthmore, said in an e-mailed
statement that the college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, hasn’t
been notified of a complaint.

Swarthmore Commitment

Chopp said the college is “committed to supporting our
students and to fulfilling both the letter and the spirit of
Title IX and the Clery Act. The safety of our students, both
physical and emotional, is our highest priority, and we will do
everything in our power to assure that.”

Justin Anderson, a spokesman for Dartmouth in Hanover, New
Hampshire, said in an e-mail that the school has not seen the
complaint.

“No educational institution should be complacent about
claims of sexual assault and discrimination, and Dartmouth is
not,” he said. “In recent years, we have implemented numerous
new initiatives and are committed to finding effective ways to
make lasting and positive change.”

Eddie North-Hager, a spokesman for USC in Los Angeles,
didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the
filings. Janet Gilmore, a spokeswoman for Berkeley, said the
college takes sexual assault very seriously and it hasn’t had an
opportunity to review the complaint.

Occidental Complaint

Last month, a group of students at Occidental College said
they filed complaints alleging that the Los Angeles school has
violated the Clery Act and Title IX. Allred is representing
students involved in that case who said they were sexually
assaulted.

Swarthmore and Occidental are conducting external reviews
of their policies and procedures relating to sexual assault.

Many colleges underreport complaints about sexual abuse and
harassment to preserve their reputations, Allred said.

“There’s an economic reason why they don’t want true crime
statistics to be reported,” she said. “It will affect their
admissions.”

Students at Dartmouth held a protest last month where they
accused the school of an inadequate response to sexual assault,
racism and homophobia. Carol Folt, Dartmouth’s interim
president, shut down the school for a day after the students
said they received threatening messages on a college-linked
website.

Safe, Inclusive

Dartmouth “has been marketed as a safe and inclusive
college, an ideal learning environment, an Ivy League
university,” said Rachel Sands, a student involved in the
complaint, in an e-mailed statement. “This is not true if you
are a woman, gay, transgender, of color, or poor.”

The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, already is
facing Title IX and Clery Act complaints. The school has said
the Education Department is investigating its compliance with
the regulations.

Annie Clark, a former UNC student who’s now an
administrator at the University of Oregon, said her concerns
were dismissed by school officials after she reported her rape.

“A university administrator responded to me by saying,
‘Rape is like football, and if you look back on the game, what
would you have done differently in that situation?’” Clark said
today at the press conference. “The message was loud and clear
-- I was being blamed for a violent crime committed against
me.”

The press conference was delayed for 20 minutes when two
transgender Dartmouth students protested that they had not been
included in the presentation. They read statements to the press
about “homophobic harassment” on campus while hotel security
staff members ordered them to leave. The pair left after the
police were called.